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The Death Of Intellectual Property
sheath writes: "The National Post
has an article on the possible death of intellectual property as a result of trends on the net. They quote William Gibson as saying, 'This may be the end of a 90-year window when it was possible to make money off recorded music.' Interesting piece from a mainstream (in Canada, anyway) source."
"While frightening to some, this new reality will not destroy all creation of wealth through inventiveness or artistry. People, including this techno-pirate who downloaded the film, will still go out to the theatre. People will still buy newspapers. They will still listen to commercial radio and television and still pay for CDs." People will not necessarily pay for CDs. People will go to the theatre for film, but for concerts-- some concerts are truly performances, whereas some concerts are impossible (industrial music is often better listened to studio-mixed than with some guy on a stage trying to do it in front of a crowd). Fewer and fewer people are buying newspapers, as news reported online is more up-to-the-minute and often more complex in its detail. These things will remain, of course but the difference is this: they will no longer be the source of major profits. Newspapers will have a harder time making the big buck. Artists and musicians will not be able to make their money in the same ways and the same quantities as they do now.
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Can someone define "Intellectual Property" for me? I've always been a bit shaky on the definition.
VERY briefly:
Intellectual property is (like any property) a bundle of rights relating to information -- you know, non-physical, intangible stuff. This bundle of rights is different from the rights you have in physical property. An example of difference is copyright's fair use exceptions. The reason for the difference is that "if I give you an apple, I lost an apple, but if I give you an idea, both of us have the idea". In other words, information use is non-exclusionary: you can use information simultaneously with other people.
There are currently three forms of IP:
(1) Patents (which used to cover only devices, but now seem to cover anything at all). A patent gives you an exclusive right to make (and license, sell, etc.) the patented device. Patents expire after a period of time (17 years?) and the information passes into public domain.
(2) Trademarks (which cover names -- words, images, and now even scents -- used to identify business products). "Coca-cola" or the Nike's whoosh logo is a trademark. Trademarks, I think, never expire.
(3) Copyright (which covers any information). This, of course, is the interesting part. Copyright gives the copyright holder a bunch of rights, the most important of which is the right to restrict making copies of the copyrighted information. Copyright originated as the means to protect authors from unscrupulous publishers but since, let us say, changed its character quite a bit. Copyright expires after some ungodly amount of time (in the US thank the Sonny Bono bill for that).
HTH
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
In a letter to Isaac McPherson, on August 13th, 1813, Thomas Jefferson writes:
...
It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until wecopied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.
...
In other words, if I write a song, and it is recorded, I no longer have control over the spread of said song, and my song must stand on it's own value. If people like my song, and they like it a lot, then those people have the choice to make payment to me, not necessarily for the song itself, but as an encouragement to produce more songs.
However, it would be arrogant of me to assume that anything is owed me. How can I charge a price for something that no longer costs me anything? And how do I determine a price to charge another man for something that holds no value to him until it is given to him, especially when it may be of no value?
This stands as well in the concept of Patents on Ideas vs. Inventions (The implementation of Ideas), which was the original subject of this letter.
That we are revisiting problems that existed 200 years ago, is proof that the man who holds no value in history is doomed to repeat it.
-Tommy
"I got a half gallon of Jack, and 2 dozen Ant Traps. I'm about to get wild." -me
"Bottom line, there are too many lawyers trained in Intellectual Property law for IP to disappear."
There may be too many lawyers for Intellectual Property Law to disappear, but you're missing the point: Distributing copyrighted music over the internet is already illegal. All the existing laws have yet to dent the widespread practice of downloading MP3 files. Don't equate lawyers and law too closely with reality.
"Gibson is underestimating the degree to which MP3's have been allowed to prosper, so as to force the hands of the courts, the houses, the lobbyists, and the competitors."
I think you're overestimating the collective intelligence and cunning of the five remaining media corporations. Maybe you have read too many Gibson novels...
Here is a key quote from the article:
"This erosion of revenue will simply transform the cultural industries under attack. Musicians may have to put up with poor CD sales, but will make money through live appearances, endorsements or merchandising."
Most bands only get 25 - 35 per CD that is sold. The other $15 - $20 goes to the store, distributor, record label, etc. With the exception of the handful of mega-bands like U2 & Pearl Jam, most bands make the bulk of their money from playing live. This means that if a band could get a few pennies for every song that is downloaded, they would be money ahead, and wouldn't have to compromise themselves artistically.
Film-makers, given the inexpensive and powerful equipment readily available to them, could start putting out films the same way bands can record and release their own music. Think of local stage productions, which often use part-time, semi-pro actors and directors. That same group of people could put together a film and release it on a website like The New Venue.
I think that music corporations should be thankful for the century or so that it was possible to make trillions of dollars off recorded music. Like tobacco farmers and land-mine manufacturers, they should start looking for a new line of work.
Mike van Lammeren
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.
I believe that the real issue here is not copyright, which is a fair and just concept, but the distribution of copyrighted material. At the moment, we pay far more for the distribution and packaging aspect of music, literature etc than we do for the actual content. Most artists get only a small percentage of the final selling price, and somehow we keep paying for books and music that are long out of copyright. Mozart, anyone? It's the publishers that make the money, not the artists.
So when the ability to charge for distribution goes away - what remains? An obvious way for copyrighted material to be distributed is over the web, where popular artists can sell adverts to make up for lost revenue. If the selling price is low enough, ie the current 10% that the artist gets instead of the $$ that we pay, then far less pirating will happen. And if the content is available globally instead of in controlled areas (DVD, anyone?) then there is also less incentive to pirate.
TV and radio have been making money from selling adverts for content for years, and it has so far been the way of the web. A little leakage from copying is probably inevitable, but if it serves to increase the popularity and recognition of the artist concerned, then that can only be an advantage. Remember the good ol' Grateful Dead - so much for home taping killing music.
IP is more about plagiarism than copying. If the artist retains copyright then ripping off tunes or copying words will still be actionable, but the distribution issue should just go away.
Put the blame on meme
Mozart died broke.
I truly wonder if, after having broken down the current reward structure for IP with our shiny toys, we can't come up with anything better than returning to a centuries old model. Did patronage give listeners more choices? I don't know.
And about the whole "Let them play live!" thing, that throwback to ancient times really doesn't work for modern day artists that use the studio as their instrument. The more raves you have to play to make ends meet, the fewer time you have to make new creations. And lord help people whose main talent is not performing in any way, but composing, mixing, or producing. "William Orbit will now play 'Strange Cargo IV' for you. Please turn off all mobile phones." Right.
We've got to do better than making art disposable and hope some rich guy picks up the trash. I am thinking that a connection between PayPal and Napster ("You have listened to this mp3 10 times. Click here to voluntarily pay 50 cents to the artist. Click here to add the original song to your custom mix CD for $1,-. Cancel and keep listening") might go a long way to making us honest again and keeping music afloat.
How do we [Software Engineers] fight change like that? Do we have the ACM hire a bunch of lawyers to form the Software Engineer Association of America [SEAA] and sue the pants off of the creaters of this machine? Do we hire lobbyists to push laws that restrict it's use so the SEAA can go "cease and desist" crazy? You can, but not me. It would be like you're on the Titanic and throwing rocks at the iceberg because you're mad that it ruined your ship. No thanks, I'll be busy finding something that will keep me afloat until a new ship comes along, thank you very much.